History books

A few weeks back NewMexiKen read The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution by David O. Stewart and said, “It’s a readable, rather well-told narrative about the Constitutional Convention.” I also went on to say, “The classic work on the Constitutional Convention is Catherine Drinker Bowen’s Miracle At Philadelphia, but that I had never read Bowen’s book. I’ve now read it.

Of the two I recommend Stewart. His is clear, concise and more analytical. Bowen’s book is, I think, reflective of much history written a generation or two ago — a little too much he said, he said (there was no she said). It also changes approach in the middle, going from day-by-day to topic-by-topic. This is disconcerting. You know how today you can sometimes read nonfiction and it seems you can almost sense the cutting and pasting? With Bowen you can almost sense the “I’ll never get done doing this; I have to try another approach.”

Which isn’t to say Bowen’s book isn’t worthwhile. It is. It has been the standard work on the Constitutional Convention for more than 40 years.

But I’d read Stewart first.

Meanwhile, I’ve learned about A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States. In this book, Professor Timothy J. Henderson tries to take a look at the war and its impact from a Mexican perspective.

There’s a interview with Henderson at the American Heritage Blog and, among other things he has this to say:

As for our own time, my suspicion is that most people nowadays don’t have many strong feelings one way or another about the [Mexican] war, simply because they know almost nothing about it. I talk to people all the time—intelligent, educated folks—who are genuinely surprised to learn that the Southwest came to us by way of a war with Mexico. That’s true even of people who’ve lived their entire lives in the Southwest, and of people who grew up in towns with names like “Buena Vista” and “Monterrey.” If more people knew the circumstances under which the United States began the war with Mexico, they might have cause to cringe. But my impression is that folks who like to read about wars tend to favor military history, and from a purely military standpoint the United States acquitted itself very well in Mexico.

The bottom line, I think, is that for Americans—and most peoples of the world, I would guess—winning counts for a great deal, and the United States won the war with Mexico decisively. In the bargain, it achieved the objective of territorial expansion, which I think most Americans broadly supported. And when I read some of the rhetoric in the debate on immigration, I don’t see a nation wracked by guilt over past injustices to Mexico.

I’ll let you know what I think when I get Henderson’s book.